Zaheer Khan, with nothing more than a tilt of the wrist and malevolent intent, bowled India to the verge of victory with five stunning wickets as he snaked the ball mesmerically from around the wicket, first one way and then the other in the spirit of the great Wasim Akram.

Used sparingly in the morning session by Rahul Dravid - bewilderingly so, given the quality of his bowling in this match - he returned with real zest in the afternoon to add four more wickets to that of Alastair Cook taken first thing, leaving England floundering with a slender lead in the second Test.

Among Zaheer's victims during a spell with the second new ball that punctured England's ambition at a time when they might just have been thinking of inflicting possible embarrassment themselves was Michael Vaughan, who batted peerlessly for 124, the second century of his comeback summer, before the tamest of ends to a brilliant innings.

With England bowled out for 355, a lead of 72, India were in reality left at most 40 minutes' batting to get the runs last night. With the weather set fair, though, discretion rather than bravado won the day. The sides will resume this morning with the tourists, all their wickets intact, needing a further 63 to go dormie in the three-match series. England's goose is not just cooked but sitting on the serving dish ready to carve.

Dravid's side struck without mercy once the second new ball became available, by which time Vaughan and Paul Collingwood, battling determinedly, had all but taken their fourth-wicket stand beyond the century mark and were looking immovable.

On the slenderest of threads do fortunes hang. With the left-armer Zaheer in his second over with the new ball and delivering from around the wicket, Vaughan had every right to envisage runs as the ball angled down the leg side.

Instead it lodged momentarily in the gap between his leg and left thigh pad, deflected, dropped in the crease and rolled gently into the stumps before the horror-struck batsman could react. Thus was set in motion a chain of dismissals that saw the last seven wickets fall for 68 runs, 22 of them in a jaunty last-wicket partnership.

This was inspirational bowling from Zaheer, a revelation in this series, for the most part in perfect control, a genuine manipulator of the ball as opposed to those who purport to be swing bowlers but move the ball only on their actions. Such practitioners are the aerobatic equivalent of the wrist spinners with their leg-breaks and googlies.

Vaughan's dismissal was followed swiftly in the same over by that of Ian Bell, caught on the crease second ball and leg before wicket. Dravid allowed Zaheer only four overs before turning to RP Singh, operating in similar mode, who promptly ripped a wicked inswinger through the groping defence of Matthew Prior and plucked from the turf his off stump.

By now England's objective would have switched to an attempt to get sufficient runs on the board to give a lead of, say, 150 and the opportunity to inflict some early embarrassment and later jitters, especially if the same extravagant movement found by the Indian pace bowlers persisted into day five.

Low targets have often proved more troublesome than larger ones. This, though, rested on Collingwood's capacity to nurse the tail as tenderly as he had managed in Nagpur on the occasion of his maiden Test hundred, and briefly he sparked into belligerent life.

Dravid countered immediately, however, playing his trump card: Zaheer returned to the fray from the Pavilion End and, continuing his well trodden path from around the wicket, managed to float one away from the right-hander, who, drawn into the stroke, edged low to first slip. Occasionally a batsman has to cede that he has been bettered.

The passage was open to the end of the innings and it was Anil Kumble who took it. At this stage of a Test, with a pitch wearing and nearing its fifth day, it might be the spinners who are expected to come in to play. But this pitch, bound by the moisture that still lurks not far beneath the surface, has held up. More rough would be found outside a dockyard pub at closing time than for the wrist spinner to exploit here. Yet as Monty Panesar has earned the bowlers' bunce for England, so it was Kumble here who collected the tail-end sweepings - Chris Tremlett belted aimlessly to mid-on, Panesar, who was deluded by a force to the extra-cover boundary, slogged high to mid-on, and Anderson simply went on to the back foot and missed.

Since his return to the England side Vaughan has batted in princely fashion and yesterday he was exemplary - on the drive, with none more thrilling than the one he hit straight back past Singh to take him to within two of his 17th Test hundred, and particularly through midwicket, where he picked off Kumble with delicious ease.

With Andrew Strauss he added 81 for the second wicket, the opener batting sweetly for his 55 before he blotted his book with an ugly flat-footed flay immediately after lunch. Vaughan's subsequent brief alliance with Kevin Pietersen produced little but controversy as Sreesanth, clearly wound up, let fly a wicked swinging beamer which Pietersen did well to avoid. Sreesanth's apology cut little ice with those who understand that, unless he is attempting a complicated slower ball, an international bowler does not accidentally miss his length by a matter of 25 yards or more. Even within the context of a fractious match this was a disgrace.